


Long Distance Call

by littlerhymes



Category: Entourage
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, POV Second Person, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Eric didn't make it to LA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Distance Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DTKokoro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DTKokoro/gifts).



> Thank you to SQ for beta reading.

You get a feeling when he calls. Call it a sixth sense, call it bullshit, whatever. You know it's him before you ever pick up.

"What up, E?" he'll say. If you close your eyes and listen hard enough, you can pretend nothing's changed, that he still lives down the street, and you'll see each other tomorrow...

But you never can listen quite _that_ hard.

Sometimes you even think Vince sounds a little different these days, the California sun creeping into his voice, static on the line like summer sand.

He's still your best friend, there's no question about that. But there's a whole wide continent between you now, and behind your back maybe he's been growing into someone new.

Guess what, he'll say, and I heard the funniest thing, and I was on my way home today when...

The day you realise 'home' means LA, you take care not to let him know how much that disappoints you. You think you do a pretty good job. Then again, you were never much of an actor.

He always ends the call the same way. "Think about it," he says. "It'll be like old times, E. You and me, Turtle, Drama. You'll love it out here, I promise. No more working late shifts. No more of any of that. Just the sun, the surf... What do you say?"

"For starters? I don't surf," you shoot back, pretending he's cracking a joke. "And I'm Irish, remember? Sun means I burn."

He'll sigh. "Come on, Eric. How can I make this deal any sweeter for you?"

"Just," you say, and stop. Keeping your voice as casual as you can. "Let me think about it."

"Well, think about it then," he'll say. "See ya." And hangs up.

*

Vince's agent never seems to be around. Every other time you talk Vince has just left three messages and still not heard a word.

When you point this out to him, he says, "My agent is really good. It's just, you know. It's a matter of timing."

"You agent sounds like an asshole," you say bluntly. "What's his name? Josh Weinstein? Yeah. He's an asshole."

After a moment he cracks up. "Yeah. I guess he is."

"Vince, you need to get yourself a better agent. Or a manager."

"Well, why the fuck do you think I keep asking you to come to LA?" He sounds halfway between exasperated and amused. "One of these days, E, you're going to say _yes_ to me, and you're not going to be sorry."

The waiting around pays off, eventually. Vince calls you the day, the _hour_ , he lands the part in A Walk To Remember. He's so eager, so excited it's finally happening, you can almost hear him bouncing off the fucking ceiling.

Stubbornly you refuse to be impressed. "Mandy Moore?" you scoff. "What is this, like some kid's movie? I thought you were only gonna go for serious roles."

"Look. It's a start, E." A pause, and then his voice again, almost hurt. "I thought you'd be glad for me. I finally feel like things are starting to work out for me. And it's Mandy Moore, E! Let me tell you, she is _hot_."

Everything out of your mouth that day tastes sour. "Yeah. Maybe I'll wait for it on DVD."

"Fine. Be that way." Vince hangs up.

But Vince never cuts you off.

You keep checking your cell every few minutes for the rest of the day, expecting him to call back, or leave a message. You recharge the battery twice, and going home on the subway seems to take twice as long as usual because there's no coverage and what if maybe he's trying to call you right now?

But he doesn't call.

Well. Not for a few days, at least.

*

After A Walk To Remember, Vince guest spots on CSI, gets knocked back on a pilot, lands a walk-on in a Bruce Willis movie although the scene ends up on the cutting-room floor.

Nothing big though. He still says he's thinking about changing agents.

And he still calls you. And calls you.

And then he calls you, one night just as you get home after a late finish, still in your grease-stained work clothes.

You almost drop your cell trying to fish it out of your pocket and answer on the second ring. "This is Eric Murphy," you say automatically though you already know, like you always do, who's waiting on the other end.

"E," he says, and it's not your imagination this time. He does sound different. He sounds tired, more tired even than you, like he's taken one hit too many and he's not getting up off the canvas. And you can hear all this before he makes another single sound.

"I'm taking the red-eye out of LA," he says. Traffic noises in the background like he's calling from a payphone. "Tonight."

You want to ask, How long? Why now? For good? You want to say, I knew it, I fucking knew it, I knew you'd come back - even though this is a lie.

Most of all you want to say what you've been wanting to say since he left, which is: jesus, I missed you.

"Okay," you say, completely calmly. "What time should I pick you up?"

*

You don't mean to, you hold out your hand thinking you'll do some kind of manly arm clasp, but you end up hugging him instead. He is leaner beneath the loose sweater and he's more tan. And like on the phone he seems more tired than he should. But his smile is still the same, for you at least.

You want to keep looking at him and remind yourself to look away. To cover yourself you pick up his bag. "You didn't bring much." Thinking maybe this means he doesn't mean to stay too long, you'll wake up and he'll be gone tomorrow.

He shrugs. "It's as much as I left with."

It all comes out, the whys and wherefores, while you inch your way through city traffic back to the place you both grew up.

How he came this close - _this_ close, his thumb and forefinger almost pinched together - to doing a commercial, even though he'd promised himself no more advertisements, ever again. How his agent got him the break of a lifetime and then lost it. How he broke up with his girl.

"Wait," you say. "You had a girl? _A_ girl?"

Girls, okay. But Vince has never had _a_ girl, not in all the years you've known him. And he has never mentioned her in his calls, ever.

"Yeah. Mandy." He sighs. "But I really don't want to talk about it, E." He rolls down the window and angles his face against the wind, eyes half closed. "Right now I'm just glad to be back."

Sounds to you more like he's glad to be not in LA, but you let that one slide.

Eventually Vince sighs and fidgets in his seat, swings the radio dial all the way up and then all the way down again, searching for some frequency hidden in the white noise.

*

In the time since he left, his old room at his mom's place has become stuffed full to overflowing with piles of discarded clothing, worn out furniture, rolled up carpets, junk.

"Ma," Vince says plaintively around a mouthful of the pasta she's insisted you both must eat, "you kept asking me to visit. But where did you think I was going to sleep?"

So you end up unfolding the sofa bed in your living room while Vince takes a shower.

You look around. Five minutes after he walked in the door and his clothes are already being strewn across your furniture, his iPod hooked up to your stereo. He's singing in your bathroom - only a little off key.

You have to remind yourself it's only temporary.

Another shift again that night. You drag yourself reluctantly to work while Vince meets up with the neighborhood boys for beer and tacos. He calls you on the work line at one point, music throbbing loud in the background.

"This place is awesome. You should meet up with us after," he shouts. There's a crash in the background like someone's dropped a stack of glasses. A girl shrieks. "Eric? E? Can you hear me?"

After a moment the signal drops out. You don't try calling him back.

*

It's never been hard for Vince to find a warm bed for the night. When you get home it doesn't surprise you to see that the sofa's empty, the sheets spread as smooth as they were when you left 'em.

What you don't expect is to find him sprawled on your own bed, face slack against your pillow. It's weirdly disorientating, how familiar this seems. Like he never left.

But you know better. It's been a long time and if you've been counting the days, well. You weren't exactly holding your breath either. Passed out, you decide, and lean down to shake him awake. "Come on, Vince. I'm not sleeping on the couch in my own fucking house."

He wakes up without a struggle. "Hey," he says, so instantly lucid that you start to doubt whether he's drunk as much as you thought.

"Hey yourself, now get the hell out of my bed."

"Come on, E." He rolls over, pats the mattress invitingly. "Room for two," he says with exaggerated coyness.

Okay, so maybe he's drunk after all. "Fuck you," you say, and hit the shower.

He's still there when you come back, under the sheets even, though at least all his limbs are arranged on the same side of the bed. "No, I'm not moving," Vince says muzzily as you approach, without bothering to open his eyes. "I'm asleep and I am not moving."

You give up and slide in beside him. What the hell. "Good night," you say shortly and turn out the light.

For what feels like the longest time you listen to him breathe - the rhythm deep and even - it's so perfect you know he's just acting. "I know you're awake," you say out loud when you can't stand it any more.

You don't imagine the hitch in his breath. Just the slightest, but it's there. You are pretty certain by now that he was never drunk at all.

"I missed you," you say. You've been carrying these words around so long that finally you could only imagine saying them in a raised voice, in anger or bitterness. But it's easy in the dark to just say it, and mean it. So you say it again. "I missed you a lot."

"E," he says at last and turns over, and you'd tried to forget this but couldn't, the heat of his mouth, his hands.

*

Nothing much in your routine changes. You still work long mindless hours, shovelling pizza and mopping grease.

Except that when you get home you find Vince watching tv, or in the kitchen making dinner, or ready to take you out. And sometime in the night you'll say "I'm going to bed," and you won't even need to look around to know that he's following.

Like turning a key in a lock - like doing this for the first time when you were both sixteen and so, so horny - that's how it feels when you kiss him, so right and so easy.

Sometimes he'll let you push him down on the mattress and pull you down next to him, and you'll make out until your lips are bruised and you're so hard you think you can't stand it. You'll try to slow down, try to make this last, but Vince will say "come _on_ ," right into your ear, and grind against you, smirking.

Or you'll leave the lights on and watch him as long as you can, hands making hopeless fists in the sheets when he holds you down by the hips and sucks you off till you come, feeling like you're going to pass out. And then he'll flop down beside you, and say, "Not bad, huh, E?"

Yeah. No kidding.

*

A few days go by and you try not to think about how long this is gonna last.

But you can't help noticing a well-thumbed script for a movie called Matterhorn lying on the bedside table, and when you surreptitiously check the 'calls received' on Vince's cell, Josh Weinstein is next on the list after you.

The last time you had to talk about it, he ended up moving to the other side of the continent. So you put it off asking for as long as you can.

Which turns out to be one week, exact.

"Matterhorn." Vince picks up the script, puts it down again. "It's meant to be pretty big. I'm up for one of the supporting roles. Actually." He rubs his hands on his jeans. "Josh wants me to fly back to LA for an screen test next week."

"Next week." You repeat the words flatly.

"Yeah. If I get the part, shooting starts pretty much straight away. In Vancouver."

Didn't you always know it would come down to this? It's not like you haven't been here before, watching him walk away.

"Well." Vince looks at you, looks away. He shrugs. "I haven't given him an answer yet." He hesitates. "Suppose I passed on this one. Suppose I stayed. I mean, if that was okay with you," he says hastily.

And suddenly there it is. You're being offered what you wouldn't ask for. You didn't have to lift a finger. All you have to do is say yes...

But he would _do_ it too, that's the fucking problem. In the third grade you told him to try out for the school play, and in junior high you told him to ask Nina to the dance, and two years ago you told him to go do that audition in Los Angeles.

And he wouldn't ask you why. He never has. He's just done it.

This movie could be the biggest fucking break of his career but if you told him to stay in New York right now, he'd throw it out the window.

"You." You cough a little. "You said this movie was meant to be big?" you hedge, a part of you furious at yourself for asking it and the rest of you knowing you would hate yourself forever if you didn't. "Can I read the script?"

*

He's watching tv when you go back into the living room. On your way through to the kitchen you toss the script onto the coffee table and call back over your shoulder, "So I read it."

He stands up so fast you actually think you hear his knees crack and follows you into the kitchen. "What did you think?"

"Well." You try to look like you don't really give a shit. "For starters, I cleaned out the second drawer, so you can stop leaving your crap all over my bedroom floor."

You gave it an honest reading, you really did. And it sucked. You have never been so relieved to read a bullshit excuse for a script in your life.

Vince laughs. "I hated it too." He pushes you back against the sink, voice dropping. "So I can stay, huh?"

"Guess so," you say, hating how your voice cracks, feeling your face heat up as he leans down towards you.

"I'm glad you didn't like it," he says indistinctly into your ear. "But even if you did, I was going to stay anyway."

You're never going to know if that's really true. But just at that moment, you can't bring yourself to care.

*

It's a couple of weeks later you see the ad in the entertainment pages.

Some indie film is holding an open casting call, in the old theatre a couple of blocks away from your mom's place.

You look up the director's name on Google and find out he was the youngest director to ever win Sundance. You're curious so you call up, pretending to be Vince's manager, and a few days later you get a copy of the script.

It's good. It's really fucking good. And best of all the movie is going to shoot in New York.

So you call Vince.

"Hey," you say. "You ever hear of an indie movie called Queens Boulevard?"

  



End file.
